a summary spect of continuing to the end of the Hofgericht in 1451 as the project funding has expired and advancing years have dimmed my chances for grant applications, so despite the considerable efforts of Peter Oestmann it is expected to remain incomplete. However, the material gathered thus far has provided countless new insights into the importance of the activities of the royal jurisdiction in late mediaeval times. Gunter Gudian (1932–1993) planned to bridge the period between 1451 and the inauguration of the Imperial Chamber Court in 1495, concentrating on the activities of the Kammergericht (Royal Chamber Court). His early death prevented him from completing it, and only his initial findings went into the collections. Friedrich Battenberg and I have tried to remedy this by editing and publishing the court record, the Kammergerichtsbücher(Chamber Court Books). Adolf Laufs (1935–2014) (Heidelberg) took on the new critical edition of the legal foundations of the Imperial Chamber Court’s activities. His edition of the 1555 regulations for the Imperial Chamber Court was published in 1976, after which other obligations prevented him from adding further volumes. Peter Oestmann’s findings have provided fresh insights into the evolution of the Imperial Chamber Court’s legal foundations by publishing its Gemeine Bescheide (common orders). The cataloguing of the records of the Imperial Chamber Court was a task for the archivists, who were by far the best suited for this task. The new picture of the Empire and its institutions attracted much interest from theArchivreferentenkonferenz(Conference of Archive Leaders of the Federal State of Germany and the German States), which decided to find common criteria withwhich to remap the records. Filippo Ranieri (1944– 2020) and I collaborated with the commission, ensuring that the interests of legal historians were represented. Armed with these criteria, all the State Archives one after another applied for funds from the German Research Foundation to recatalogue their records. The upshot was a fully accessible, almost complete reconstruction of the records of the Imperial Chamber Court. Ulrich Eisenhardt brought to the project his knowledge of Appellationsprivilegien(records of appeal), and in addition to his publication Friedrich 59
RkJQdWJsaXNoZXIy MjYyNDk=